The comments from the Russian opposition leader were written with a heavy dose of humor, and seemed intended to assuage concerns among allies after his three-week disappearance.
Aleksei A. Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, published a letter on Tuesday describing an arduous transfer to his new penal colony in the Arctic, the first time his supporters had heard from him in three weeks.
Mr. Navalny’s comments, posted on his social network accounts and written with a heavy dose of irony and humor, highlighted his good spirits and seemed intended to assuage concerns among allies who had grown anxious about his health and status since his sudden disappearance from the public eye on Dec. 5.
“I am your new Father Frost,” Mr. Navalny wrote, referring to the Russian version of Santa Claus. “I have a sheepskin coat, a hat with earflaps; I should get felt boots soon, and I have grown a beard during the 20-day transit.”
But, he added, “The main thing is that I now live above the Arctic Circle.”
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Aleksei A. Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, published a letter on Tuesday describing an arduous transfer to his new penal colony in the Arctic, the first time his supporters had heard from him in three weeks.
Mr. Navalny’s comments, posted on his social network accounts and written with a heavy dose of irony and humor, highlighted his good spirits and seemed intended to assuage concerns among allies who had grown anxious about his health and status since his sudden disappearance from the public eye on Dec. 5.
His transfer to one of Russia’s high-security “special regime” penal colonies had been expected since September, when he lost an appeal against the 19-year sentence he is serving.
His ability to pass a letter from a new prison suggested that Mr. Navalny would most likely remain a fixture in Russia’s public life as the country nears another presidential election that Mr. Putin is poised to win amid little genuine competition.
Mr. Navalny has been in custody since his detention in January 2021 at a Moscow airport, where he had arrived after spending months in Germany recovering from poisoning by a nerve agent.
He went to Moscow from his penal colony in the nearby Vladimir Region, then to Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains and then through Kirov up north to Vorkuta before finally arriving in Kharp on Saturday, according to his letter.
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